Full Bleed Design: How to Properly Design for Full Bleed Printing

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Last updated on September 13th, 2023 at 01:44 pm

Improper design of full bleed is the number 1 cause of delays when customers order prints from a company. It is essential for the customer to know what full bleed is, and more importantly, how to properly design for full bleed printing, when ordering. But what does bleed mean? This blog post was written to quickly and simply outline and explain to customers in detail what a full bleed design is and the necessities of designing for a full bleed project.

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Summary

Full Bleed Printing – Printing to the edge of the paper with no margins

Design for full bleed – Two important rules

  • Add bleeds – extend the design dimension size 1/8″ on all sides.
  • Account for bleed line safety margins — no critical text or images within the safety margins
  • Products with full bleed or can be added on

Common mistakes when designing for full bleed

  • Adding a white border as the “bleeds” of the design.
  • Putting critical text in the safety margin and/or full bleed area.
  • Expanding the file to increase the dimensions.
  • Adding cut marks.

Design dimension chart

Policy

It is incredibly important for Printivity’s file check department to receive properly designed files to guarantee a quality and timely production for an order. Turnaround times for orders placed on the site assume that submitted files are designed correctly. Incorrectly designed files, including files not designed properly for full bleed, will delay an order.

Full Bleed Printing

Full bleed printing is printing to the edge of the paper so the final result has no margins. When you use this style of printing, a graphic or image expands to the absolute edge of the page with no border or white space.

If a file is not prepared for full bleed or is not requested to be printed full bleed, there will be a 1/8″ white border margin on all sides of the finished product. An example of a printout with no bleeds and full bleed can be shown in the example flyer below.

The left image is a not bleed file and has a one eighth inch margin. The right image is full bleed and has no margins.
No Bleeds – 1/8″ Margin Full Bleed – No Margins

However, files that are to be printed with full bleed images (no margins) need to be specifically designed for full bleed.

Designing for full bleed

When designing for full bleed, the design must have “bleeds” and “safety margins” (safety margins will be explained later). But first, what products automatically come with full bleed and what ones are automatically no-full bleed? We address this question below.

Full Bleed or No-Full Bleed Products: Which Options Automatically Feature Full Bleed Designs? 

Some print products automatically come with full bleed. The price of full bleed is built into the cost, so take advantage of this and design for full bleed.

Other products do not automatically come with full bleed and will need to be added on for an additional cost.

How much bleed for print?

The bleed is the extension of the print by 1/8″ (0.125″) on all sides of a document that won’t be in the final printed product. Therefore, if an 8.5″ x 11″ document with no margins was desired, the designed file must be 8.75″ x 11.25″.

An example of the above flyer with no margins that was originally designed as 8.75″ x 11.25″ with 1/8″ bleeds on all sides is shown below. The area outside of the dotted red lines is the bleed of the image.

Properly designed files for full bleed printing are 8.75" x 11.25" then is cut down to the final dimension (8.5" x 11).
Properly designed file with bleeds before printing (left). Printed file with no margins after printing and final cut (right).

The reason for extending the design 1/8″ on all sides for full bleed

The most common mistake when customers submit files they want to print full bleed with no margins is submitting a digital file that is designed with the same dimension as the desired printed file (e.g. submitting an 8.5″ x 11″ digital file to be printed as 8.5″ x 11″ with no margins). These customers typically ask “why do I need the extra 1/8″ addedto achieve a full bleed design?” The reason why is twofold:

All printers have a very slight print shift when printing a file. 

Therefore, the document that’s being printed needs to be printed on a larger sheet of paper so the printer can print the full dimension of the document without having to worry about very minor shifting errors. Since the printer prints on a larger sheet of paper, the paper needs to be cut to the proper dimension of the file. Without a larger sheet of paper, the resulting print edges might have white slivers, in lieu of continuous color, after cutting. This is essential for materials like artwork and posters. Therefore there needs to be 1/8″ bleeds in order to account for standard print shifts so no white slivers show after the cutting process. The dotted red lines in the full bleed size for printing 8.75″ x 11.25″example picture above are the cut mark lines.

Once the full bleed file is printed, it will include the full bleed design and a white border. Then the sheets will be cut by a guillotine paper cutter which will cut off the white border and bleeds.
Printed pages will be trimmed on the red dotted line (left). Once printed, a guillotine paper cutter will trim off the excess white margin and the bleeds (right). Since the bleeds extend beyond the cut line, there will be no possibility of white slivers near the edges with proper bleed printing.

Account for bleed printing safety margins — no critical text or images within the safety margins

Safety margins are 1/8″ margins inside the cut line of a design. The safety margin area is between the orange and red dotted lines. The safety margin area is the space in the main print area that runs the risk of being cut due to the error tolerance of the print shift. No critical text or images that must be on the printed document can be in the safety margin area because they run the risk of being cut.

When designing for full bleed, customers will also need to design for the safety margin. The safety margin is an additional one eighth inch from the final dimension.
When designing the file, make sure there is no critical text or images another 1/8″ from the final dimension (red line). The safety margin (yellow line) and full bleed area gives a 1/8″ tolerance to the left and right of the intended cut line.

Common mistakes when designing with full bleed

Adding a white border as the “bleeds” of the design.

One of the biggest mistakes when designing full bleed is adding a 1/8″ white border around the design to give the file “bleeds.” This is not a proper way to design for bleeds because the bleeds actually have to be part of the design. Minor printing or paper cutter errors may shift the paper very slightly when cutting, which means that a section of the full bleed area will be part of the final print. If the full bleed area is white, then the final print might have a white sliver on the edges after printing.

Designing bleeds as a white border is considered improperly designed. This can result is a small white sliver appearing on one or more sides due to slight shifting.
Designing bleeds as a white border is considered improperly designed. This can result is a small white sliver (top image) appearing on one or more sides due to slight shifting.

Putting critical text in the safety margin and/or full bleed area.

Another big mistake when creating a full bleed design is putting critical text and/or images in the safety margin area. Anything within the safety margins runs the risk of being cut off during the trimming process. Therefore, if any essential text or images are in the safety margins, they might get cut off, and the desired result will look bad. It is common for people to put page numbers in the safety margins, which puts the numbers at risk of getting cut off slightly. In this version of the Printivity flyer, text has been placed within the safety margins in 3 locations. After the printing and cutting, the text was cut off in all 3 locations.

In this example, the improperly designed file has the page number 8 and other text within the safety margin (yellow dotted line). After cutting, the text on the bottom and the number 8 are not cut off because it was in the safety margin.
In this example, the improperly designed file has the page number 8 and other text within the safety margin (yellow dotted line). After cutting, the text on the bottom and the number 8 are not cut off because it was in the safety margin.

Expanding the file to increase dimensions.

Often times customers will submit a design without full bleed (for instance, 8.5″ x 11″) which needs to be redesigned for full bleed as an 8.75″ x 11.25″ design. The quick fix that customers most often do is expand the document so it fits to 8.75 x 11.25.” While this may work in some instances, more often than not, the full bleed design ends up having critical text and images within the bleeds and/or the safety margins. If a document is expanded to meet full bleed requirements, ensure there is no critical text and/or images within the safety or bleed margin.

Adding cut marks.

Cut marks are not recommended when designing for full bleed. Cut marks are technically part of the full bleed design, and any cut marks within the bleeds may show up in a final print after the cutting process.

Design dimension chart

Extend each side of the file by .125" for properly designed full bleed file.

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